人文学の「国際化」と21世紀中国

抄録

During the 17 years from 2003 to 2020, universities in the People’s Republic of China promoted reforms aimed at becoming “world-class” institutions and raising their position in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. This paper outlines the impact of the so-called World-Class University reforms on humanities fields in China.

In 2003, Xu Zhi-min, president of Peking University, unveiled a World-Class University plan that introduced a performance evaluation system to judge professors’ scholarly output. Under this plan, scholars were to be evaluated numerically based on how many papers they published in certain core journals within a certain period of time. They have also been asked to improve their English proficiency, the planned criteria for promotion to full professor included the ability to teach courses in a “foreign language” (in most cases English), and a record of publishing papers at an “international standard” of scholarship. Until recently, it has been common in China to teach courses and to publish research outcomes in the humanities in Chinese-language formats. As a result of plans for “internationalization,” however, scholars—including those working in the fields of Chinese literature, history, and philosophy—have had to justify teaching their courses and publishing their research results in Chinese. Scholars now have pressure to show that their Chinese-language courses and publications meet an “international standard.” The situation in China at the 2003 start of the World-Class University reforms resembles the current situation in Japan, where Japanology is also facing demands to be “internationalized.” The arguments that have been presented for and against the pursuit of “world-class university” status and the promotion of English-language scholarship in China merit consideration in light of conditions in Japanese universities today.

In 2020, Peking University was ranked twenty-third in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Most courses in the fields of Humanities for Chinese students are still taught in Chinese.